hello,i read today in my book that 'Wu' is a character that can mean sartori. what does wu mean and how can it be translated into english in a buddhist context.

best wishes, White Lotus.

in any matters of importance. dont rely on me. i may not know what i am talking about. take what i say as mere speculation. i am not ordained. nor do i have a formal training. i do believe though that if i am wrong on any point. there are those on this site who i hope will quickly point out my mistakes.

* ("Zhaozhou" is rendered as "Chao-chou" in Wade-Giles, and pronounced "Joshu" in Japanese. "Wu" appears as "mu" in archaic Japanese, meaning "no", "not", "nonbeing", or "without" in English. This is a fragment of Case #1 of the Wúménguān. However, note that a similar kōan records that, on another occasion, Zhaozhou said "yes" in response: Case #18 of the Book of Serenity. Essentially this koan is a reference to that which has no name, but lip-service is pointless here, thus the Zen emphasis on practice. At the same time do not construe of Mu as meaning, "no," as advised in The Three Pillars of Zen)"

Astus wrote:This is "wu" from the gongan: 無 - it means "no"This is "wu" that in Japanese stands for "satori": 悟 - it means "comprehension"And this is "wu": 五 - which means "5"

I really wish people would use proper pīnyīn which uses tone marks, whenever they don't use the characters. A pronunciation is not complete without the tone. So wú and wù are actually two different sounds altogether.

Not only do all of these words have completely different characters, but they are actually pronounced differently; wú 無, wù 悟, and wǔ 五.

If people actually used the tone marks they wouldn't mistake wú for wù. But since there are many characters that have the same pronunciation including tone, it's best to always include the character with any pīnyīn.

* ("Zhaozhou" is rendered as "Chao-chou" in Wade-Giles, and pronounced "Joshu" in Japanese. "Wu" appears as "mu" in archaic Japanese, meaning "no", "not", "nonbeing", or "without" in English. This is a fragment of Case #1 of the Wúménguān. However, note that a similar kōan records that, on another occasion, Zhaozhou said "yes" in response: Case #18 of the Book of Serenity. Essentially this koan is a reference to that which has no name, but lip-service is pointless here, thus the Zen emphasis on practice. At the same time do not construe of Mu as meaning, "no," as advised in The Three Pillars of Zen)"

The qoute above is from the second link. I added the bold emphasis.

This is the character 無 wu1. Totally different character, essentially with nothing in common with the character 悟 wu4.

This one means "without", or more abstract, "non-existence", etc. depending on context. It is usually paired with 有 you3, "have", "with", "existence", etc.

how would this wu (wu i wu) be translated and is it the same as the Wu used for 'sartori', or realization?

best wishes, White Lotus.

in any matters of importance. dont rely on me. i may not know what i am talking about. take what i say as mere speculation. i am not ordained. nor do i have a formal training. i do believe though that if i am wrong on any point. there are those on this site who i hope will quickly point out my mistakes.

The point I wish to make is this, whether it be "kong" or "wu" or any other Chinese pinyin term, there are an awful lot of homophones. So, just seeing that the pinyin is the same, and trying to make connections, is a surefire way of jumbling a whole lot of things up.

The point I wish to make is this, whether it be "kong" or "wu" or any other Chinese pinyin term, there are an awful lot of homophones. So, just seeing that the pinyin is the same, and trying to make connections, is a surefire way of jumbling a whole lot of things up.

After reading the above, I find it incredible that anyone can communicate at all using this language!

The point I wish to make is this, whether it be "kong" or "wu" or any other Chinese pinyin term, there are an awful lot of homophones. So, just seeing that the pinyin is the same, and trying to make connections, is a surefire way of jumbling a whole lot of things up.

After reading the above, I find it incredible that anyone can communicate at all using this language!

As it has been said before, meaning lies not in words, but in sentences.

this is it. this is no, this is yes, this is neither yes, nor no, both, oh darn it (the sock)...

i hope you have/had a nice day.

with respect, White Lotus.

in any matters of importance. dont rely on me. i may not know what i am talking about. take what i say as mere speculation. i am not ordained. nor do i have a formal training. i do believe though that if i am wrong on any point. there are those on this site who i hope will quickly point out my mistakes.

Chinese is not written in phonetic characters and it is impossible to transliterate Chinese characters using any phonetic characters (including Pinyin).

It is not uncommon that the same character has different pronunciation in different context and culture. As what Ven Huifeng mentioned above, the same pronunciation can also apply to many different characters of different meanings.

Hence, we can never be precise without knowing the exact Chinese characters, otherwise, we have to figure it out in the context of a sentence (this applies when we are using Chinese as a spoken language, it is actually not that difficult to pick up the meaning by its context).